Altruistic Minds Lab

Ali is a PhD student at the University of Edinburgh and a researcher at Sentience Institute. His research looks at how people think morally about nonhuman animals and artificial intelligences. He previously completed master's degrees in Cognitive Science and Economics and worked as a researcher in the nonprofit and private sectors 

Miranda is studying for her PhD in Psychology at the University of Edinburgh. Her work seeks to disentangle the influence of individualist, neoliberal ideology from moral circle and altruism research and, subsequently, to better understand collective moral regard and behaviour. She is also interested in moral regard towards villains and outcasts 

Taranah is an incoming PhD student at the University of Edinburgh who is interested in relationships and well-being. Her research focuses on the role of meditation interventions in promoting secure attachment 

Julie is an incoming ESRC-funded MSc student at the University of Edinburgh supervised by Dr Adam Moore and Dr Matti Wilks. She is broadly interested in using computational modelling to understand morality and how we value others with factors from large social systems in addition to individual-level cognitive factors. She has previously worked on interventions to deter human dairy consumption and modelling political polarisation as a function of uncertain moral signalling. She also keeps a curated selection of adorable and silly bunny pictures to brighten anyone’s day.

Anita is an MSc Social Cognition student at University College London and Visiting Student at the University of Edinburgh. She's interested in understanding what motivates people to work on the world's most pressing problems and what that means for the communities we build around them. Before her MSc, she studied BA Politics, Sociology & Eastern European Studies, and worked with charities in the legal justice sector to research barriers to providing support for minoritized communities and children.

 Elise is a research assistant with the Altruistic Minds Lab, studying how young children and adolescents morally value others and how we might expand their boundaries of moral concern. Elise also works as a research associate with Bryant Research, aiming to improve farmed animal advocacy strategies and promote alternative proteins via a social psychologically informed approach. She is keenly interested in speciesism, meat eating behaviour, and how we attribute moral worth to others. Elise earned an MSc in Psychological Research from the University of Edinburgh